Legal Marketing Straight Talk Presents: Solving the Puzzle - Online Marketing for Attorneys

By Steven Long and Jessica Ainsworth

In a world full of opportunity - and competition - how will your law firm stand out from the crowd? 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Precision Legal Marketing
• Release date: Jul 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781736752500

Steven Long

Veteran Texas investigative journalist STEVEN LONG writes for major newspapers and magazines when he is not authoring books. An avid horseman, he also serves as editor of the state’s premier equine publication, Texas Horse Magazine. His books include Out of Control and Every Woman's Nightmare. Steven Longs lives in Houston, Texas, with his wife Vicki.

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Solving the Puzzle - Online Marketing for Attorneys

Copyright © 2021 by Steven Long and Jessica Ainsworth

Author Photograph for Steve by

Precision Legal Marketing Steven Long ;)

Author photo by Todd I. Mason, Jr.,

Capture Essence Photography

Cover Design by 100 Covers

Formatting & Typesetting by Black Bee Media

ISBN: 978-1-7367525-2-4 (Hardcover)

978-1-7367525-1-7 (Paperback)

978-1-7367525-0-0 (Ebook)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the author. Reviewers may quote brief passages.

While the author has made every effort to ensure that the ideas, statistics, and information presented in this book are accurate to the best of his/her abilities, any implications direct, derived, or perceived, should only be used at the reader’s discretion. The author cannot be held responsible for any personal or commercial damage arising from communication, application, or misinterpretation of the information presented herein.

Internet addresses given in this book were accurate at the time it went to press.

Download Your FREE Gifts

We are committed to making sure that you are prepared for the realm of legal marketing. As such, to go along with this book, we have put together a collection of free resources to help you implement your law firm’s marketing strategy.

Download your FREE resources here:

http://legalmarketingstraighttalk.com

Table of Contents

Download Your FREE Gifts

Part 1

Getting Started

The Blueprint of Law Firm Marketing

11 Digital Basic Marketing Tools for Lawyers

Defining Your Target Audience

Part 2

Websites

Unboxing Law Firm Websites

Elements of a Succesful Website for Law Firms

How Much Should Your Law Firm Spend on a Website

Part 3

SEO for Law Firms

On-Site SEO

What Are Heading Tags and How to Use Them

A Law Firm's Guide to Keyword Research

Dem Links, Yo

Image SEO: Alt-Text

Understanding Off-Site SEO

Understanding Local SEO

How Legal Directories Can Benefit Your Law Firm

and Your Seo Efforts

Should My Law Firm Have A Google My Business Listing?

Keeping Your Firm’s Online Reputation Updated

How to market on Quora, Reddit and other Q&A forums

Part 4

Content Marketing

What is Content Marketing?

The Psychology Behind Law Firm Content Marketing

All About Blogging

Selecting Effective Attorney Blog Topics

Guest Blogging for Law Firms

Leveraging Trending Topics

All About Press Releases

Is Promoting Your Firm with Video Worth it?

A Guide to Video Marketing – What is it?

Benefits & Tips for Success

Podcasts - What Are They? Its Benefit to Businesses

and Tips for Success

Infographics - What Are They? Benefits & Tips for Success

Social Media and Content Marketing

Part 5

Social Media

Social Media Marketing for Lawyers

What Social Platforms Should Your Law Firm

Be Using and Why

Social Media: What Should Your Law Firm Be Posting

Optimizing Your Law Firm’s Social Presence

Facebook Live Best Practices for Lawyers

Part 6

Advertising

Why You Should Be Advertising for Your Law Firm

In The First Place?

Are Facebook Ads for Lawyers?

Using Google Ads

Part 7

BONUS

Search Metrics for Law Firm Marketing to Keep Your Eye On

SEO vs. SEM: What’s the Difference?

What Happened to the Yellow Pages? Yellow Pages v. Digital Marketing: Why Digital Marketing is Now Best

Don’t Fall for Those Digital Marketing Scare Tactics

5 Key Marketing Must-Do’s and Tips for Lawyers

6 Ways Your Firm May Be Losing Money

81 FREE Sites to Post Your Press Release

107 Websites to Get Your Law Firm Listed On Now

Resources

About Precision Legal Marketing

Author Bio - Steven Long

Author Bio - Jessica Ainsworth

Acknowledgements

Part 1:

Getting Started

The Blueprint of

Law Firm Marketing

A pivotal part of running and managing your lawn firm means learning how to run a business. It can often get overwhelming, and for a good reason – after all, in law school, you are typically taught law and not the fundamentals of running your firm. 

To run a successful law firm, you first need to become an expert at, among other things, client intake, managing an office, bookkeeping, and, most importantly, legal marketing.

Knowing how to market your law firm is unarguably one of the most critical skills you require to make your firm untouched heights and successful. Understanding all that goes with it can also help keep you safe from those who may be looking to take advantage of you.

To get started with marketing your law firm, you must have a concrete plan, some digital marketing tools, and some business know-how. 

This book is meant to cover the basics of marketing your firm. While there is a ton of practical information and advice within these pages, understand that this book could be 5 times its size if it contained all of the needed nueonsical information. This is not a book that promises to double your lead count if you follow some advanced techniques. That is not what this is about. This is meant to be foundational learning to build onto; a launch pad if you will. It’s a starting point. It will empower you to sniff out bullshit from unscrupulous marketers trying to sell you XYZ.

You will also notice we use words like customers, advertising and business in this book. It’s purposeful. We want you thinking like a business owner and not necessarily like an attorney. You have that covered. Don’t worry, there is no click funnel link black hat voodoo whatever present in this book. Just straightforward information.

As with your chosen discipline of the law, marketing is a highly specialized endeavour. Legal marketing itself is an animal unto itself. While there are some actionable DIY tips in this book, please feel free to hire a professional using this as your basic blueprint. We don’t pander much here, but feel free to call us at Precision Legal Marketing for any level of advice or questions you may have after reading these pages.

With that...let’s get into it.

11 Digital Basic Marketing Tools for Lawyers 

Starting anything new can feel overwhelming, but it is vital to understand that as your law practice grows, it’s imperative that you differentiate your firm from the other players present in the already oversaturated legal market. 

Remember, successful marketing can help your firm to stand out from the competition and, thus, will attract new clients to your practice. Let’s start with some useful digital marketing tools for lawyers that you must incorporate in your marketing strategy: 

#1: Build an appealing website for your firm 

Mostly, the first impression of people about you and your firm will be received through your website. Therefore, you must ensure that it represents your firm’s reputation, ideologies and what it stands for clearly.

Moreover, make sure that it’s responsive, fast, secure, and well-designed.

When you are building the website, ensure that it at least contains an About Us page that shares your story, tells why you exist and why you are better than other attorneys in the market. Additionally, add a page that lists your mission and values, a list of all the firm’s services, client testimonials, case studies, blogs, and even a FAQ, among other pages. This is a bare minimum requirement. While we of course design and build stunning future proof websites, you won’t hurt my feelings if you head off to squarespace or one of the other drag and drop DIY tools to get yourself started.

#2: Get discovered online through search engine optimization (SEO)

You can build the most incredible website or blog page but making sure that the target audience discovers your website/blog page is all that truly matters. To help you achieve that, this is where search engine optimization (SEO) comes into play. SEO is a crucial component of any effective digital marketing strategy for law firms.

At its core, SEO produces and directs traffic to your website by allowing visitors to easily locate your firm when surfing online. The better your site’s SEO is, the better it’ll be ranked by search engines, which means that your firms’ website will appear higher in search results.

For this purpose, you can hire expert SEO professionals (such as Precision Legal Marketing - shameless plug) who can help you reach your true potential.

#3: Generate traffic with the help of blogging and guest blogging

Blogging is yet another excellent way to generate and draw traffic to your firm’s website. Search topics your target audience would be interested in and hire experienced writers to produce appealing blog posts on them. 

In addition, guest blogging is also a good way to increase traffic. To begin, make a list of blogs you would be interested in a guest post on, check out their guest-blogging policy, and then apply. 

To amplify your probabilities of getting published, where feasible, first try to build an amicable relationship with the organization, research and note down post ideas, go through the publication’s guest posting policies, and then pitch your idea. 

#4: Share accomplishments with masses through a press release

Press releases are an excellent way to spread and share any noteworthy information and accomplishments linked to your law firm. Whether it is a case you have nailed or any new partnerships built – issuing a press release can work great to spread the news. 

Remember, they don’t supersede full-scale PR outreach to journalists but can effectively and quickly get your story out among the masses. 

It’s essential to keep in mind that journalists tend to disregard and even obliterate press releases that specifically don’t offer them something or if they feel it’s not newsworthy and/or of any interest to the readers. Therefore, always make sure to review and see if the news you want to publish is interesting or not.

#5: Augment connections with the help of email marketing

Email marketing is still one of the essential communication tools in digital marketing for lawyers. Emailing is a great way to keep your company in front-of-mind among present and present clients and also to capture new business.

A monthly or weekly newsletter is a decent way to stay in touch with subscribers. Law firms that focus on sending out valuable, relevant, and personalized emails generally perform better than those who don’t. 

#6: Bolster audience networks with content marketing 

High quality and relevant content that encourages dialogue with your target audience will ultimately deepen and strengthen your relationship and will also lead to more business. However, you must know that content marketing is more than your law firm’s blog.

When executed correctly, it involves guides, articles, eBooks, quizzes, webinars, podcasts, videos, etc. These content formats can be potent growth drivers for your firm. Just be sure to focus on generating timely, thoughtful, and educational content that is tailored particularly for your audience and is of high quality.

#7: Take advantage of social media marketing 

Today, cultivating an alluring image through social media is an essential part of public relations and digital marketing for any law firm. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram should be used to build your law firms’ brand, connect with your target audience, drive website traffic, and generate more leads. 

Social media marketing involves publishing high-quality content - that can be repurposed from your site - on your social media profiles, analyzing your results, engaging and listening to your followers, and running paid social media advertisements. Moreover, do not forget to build a professional social media profile bio as it’s usually viewed more than any other content you share.

#8: Boost traffic and generate leads through video marketing 

Video marketing fills all the boxes if you want to create more traffic, generate more leads, and acquire more clients for your law firm. It can help you to improve engagement with the target audience, improve your SEO and search rankings, and persuade prospective clients that you are the right firm for their job. 

In video marketing, you can create vlogs, conduct interviews with lawyers, develop a case study or customer testimonial videos to build trust and social proof, create educational content that emphasizes particular questions asked by clients, and so much more. 

#9: Advertise your law firm to create awareness and brand credibility 

Both paid and unpaid advertising endeavors are excellent ways of creating awareness about your brand. Organic advertisements can be done via customer testimonials, reviews, etc. Whereas paid can be achieved through PPC, i.e., pay per click. 

PPC are online ads that you pay for when someone clicks on them. The most popular example of this is Google AdWords; they are the ads you see at the top of the Google search engine. A critical thing to note with PPC or any ads you post online or send in an email newsletter is that they must always take the receiver to a designated landing page that’s particular to the ad you’re using. 

For example, in email marketing, your landing page must reflect what your ad offered. If the ad was for real estate planning services, then the landing page should talk about the services you offer in that field.

#10: List your firm in a legal directory to enhance website SEO

Another easy way augments your site’s SEO through link building is via listing your firm in a legal directory. You can get yourself registered in more than one but keep in mind that some are free while others charge a fee for the registration. 

#11: Hire marketing professionals for reputation management 

There’s no denying that bad days can come along anytime, anywhere, and unannounced. So, it is always better to be safe than sorry later. Digital marketing professionals can help you build and manage the reputation of your law firm. God forbid, if the firm is ever going through a rough phase, you can count on the professionals to clean up the mess and keep your reputation intact. 

There’s a lot of terminology in here that may be confusing, but don’t worry we go into all of this and more throughout the book. So, stay tuned!

However, before we get that far, let’s first look to narrow down exactly who your target audience is.

Defining Your Target Audience

Not everyone can be your client.

Why do I need to define an audience?

The answer is simple. In order to lead a successful marketing campaign, you have to understand who you’re marketing to - and the legal industry is no different. Knowing who your target audience is can help determine where the best place to market to them is, improve your results and knowing this could save you big bucks!

Due to Covid in mid-March of 2020, many states had issued executive orders closing non-essential businesses and ordering a shelter in place. Business owners were swept up in the whirlwind of everything wondering how their business would survive an extended closure. Without clients, how could they pay their employees who were depending on the income? Without generating revenue, would they even be able to pay their rent for their office(s)?

Many law firms (and businesses in general) turned to finding creative ways to stay afloat. Quite a few of those law firms and businesses had turned to advertising on social media to let their potential clients know that they were still open and to promote certain practice areas that had become more relevant during the time, such as divorce, child custody, estate planning, etc. However, without a clear idea of who their target audience is, it’s easy to target the wrong people.

Here’s why ensuring that you’re producing content geared at your law firm’s target audience is important... If you’re paying to advertise to the wider audience just to boost engagements and build a following, those people are not likely to convert to clients. Not only is this a waste of your money, but it also affects the algorithm for advertising campaigns on the whole. That last part is especially important if you’re using tracking for retargeting purposes through Google Ads or the Facebook Pixel (and you should be). Those unqualified leads are then captured in your spider web and you’ll continue wasting your money on any retargeting efforts. And who has money to waste during times of uncertainty?

The more you understand just who your target audience is as well, the more you’ll understand where your ideal clients are and the kind of content that will resonate better with them. And finally, people who are not in your target audience may end up contracting your firm or seeking out consultations. In fact, you can still sell to them. Your target audience revolves around those who are most likely to make a purchase and therefore, are your targeted audience.

All right. Enough about why defining your target audience is important. Now onto how you can define your target audience. As we go through this, please keep in mind that it’s always a good practice to periodically check to ensure your target audience remains the same. COVID-19 presented volatile, unprecedented times that will have lasting impact. Consumer behaviors have changed drastically after the pandemic took us by storm. In 2008, the economy was rocked by the housing market and ensuing stock market crash and subsequent recession. These major events should force business owners to take a look at their target audience as it may change at a rapid pace and continue to evolve as the economy recovers. Where one practice area may have been more relevant pre-COVID, may now be thrown off kilter as a result of the